[Dixielandjazz] A date rememembered with music connection

[Don Ingle]

Here is a jazz connection I will never forget.
Marking the 40th anniversary of the murder of JFK, several networks have done specials on this event. It is one of those things, like Dec. 7 (Pearl Harbor) and the more recent 9/11 that people who have lived through will remember forever as long as they live, recalling where they were, who they were with, and what they were doing.
This person was doing a sideline call for an industrial film introducing Busch Bavarian Beer. A sideline dall for those wondering what it is is working as an extra in a film under an agreement between the screen actors and the AFofM that when ever musicians are shown in a non-speaking role, they must be AFof M people. It is like lip sinking with a horn.
The film was being made as a promotional film to show to Busch dealers and purveyors around the country that handled the product. It was a big production -- color, directed by veteran film director Mervyn Leroy and starring Phil Harris. He was shown comig down a main street leading a big marching band and touting the virtues of the new beer.
As Kaye Wade could tell you, it was set up, camera action for one or two takes of a few seconds, then a break for an hour or more while they set up the cameras and lights for another angle. 
In an interesting sidebar, the contractor was an old family friend, Paul Mertz, of the Bix period fame who was on Bix's
Davenport Blues recording made at Gennett. He hired the sideliners and ran the pre-recorded sound so we could march in step to the track.
During the break, a few of us who knew Phil Well were invited to share his trailer dressing room, where his "gofer," Slim Bergman (who used to manage the old Club 47 owned by Doc Rando, Noni Bernardi and Nappy LaMare) would keep us in cold ones and snacks between on camera periods.
Phil regaled us with tales of the early band days when he worked as a drummer in bands including Red Nichols, his close buddy, and had us all ROLFing constantly.
On the second day of shooting during a beak, a guy came into the trailer very excited and asked if we had a radio in there. "Why,: Phil asked. "Somebody just shot the President  in Dallas."
   Everyone from grips to extras to principals went to the commissary where a TV was rolling the story as it developed.
Quiet and stunned, all just sat there in disbelief.
Soon a producer came in and said to wrap it for that day and wait for a call back in a few days, closing the set down.
That is how I recall that day -- where I was and who I was with. Such  a trauma locks those details in your skull forever.
But there is one other connector that adds to my memory lock. This happened one day after Jean and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. I would not have needed any network programming reminder this or any other year to recall that
sad day in Dallas.
And here it is that anniversary tme again -- 48 of them to date. Life goes on regardless.
Don Ingle